You can reach Rich Tandler by email at WarpathInsiders@comcast.net
All it takes is one win.
It took just one game, last Sunday’s thrilling win over
Dallas, for the Washington Redskins to move from being in the midst of a lost
season to one where there is some hope. You can’t say that they’ve found the
season yet, but at least they have a map to where it is. And the route starts at
The Linc in Philadelphia this Sunday.
If what we’ve seen so far this season is an indication, this
should be a tightly contested matchup. Of the Eagles' four losses, three of them
came on the last play of the game. The Giants finished off their comeback from
a 24-7 deficit with Eli Manning’s overtime TD pass to Plaxico Burress, they
lost to the Saints on an overtime field goal and then they went down to the
Saints on Matt Bryant’s bomb from 62 yards. Washington has won three games and
in two of them the winning scores came on walk off plays. They beat
Jacksonville in sudden death overtime and last week, of course, there was Nick Novak’s game-winning field goal coming on an untimed extra play after the clock
struck 0:00 in regulation.
Is the Eagles’ three-game losing streak just a run of bad
luck? After all, not too many games are lost on field goals from past midfield.
Or, are they returning to the form they displayed in 2005 when they went 6-10?
The main difference between last year and now is the
presence of one Donovan McNabb in the Eagles’ lineup. He played hurt for part
of last season before his sports hernia forced him to shut down for the last
six games of the season. To say that he’s a difference maker for the Eagles is
quite the understatement. He’s the best quarterback in the division and he’s
one of the best in the NFL. He’s the guy that’s keeping Gregg Williams up late
this week.
Al Saunders is sleeping a little easier this week because it
looks like Santana Moss will play. One of the overlooked aspects of the win
against Dallas was that it was achieved without the services of Moss, who
arguably is the team’s best player. He was upgraded to probable on Friday’s
injury report and that means that there is a virtual certainty that he will
play.
The Redskins will need Moss and every other offensive weapon
that they can muster. The Eagles are ranked first in the NFL in total offense
and they are among the leaders in scoring. The Redskins defense was better than
it has been in the Dallas win, but the unit is still #30 in the league.
Sometimes yardage stats can be deceiving; in this case they are not. It seems
as though every time an opponent has needed to put a drive together it has been
able to do so. The Cowboys were able to get into position for a game-winning
chip shot, but Troy Vincent the novice special teams player bailed out his
defensive mates with the block. It’s difficult to foresee the Eagles scoring
much fewer than the 25 points per game that they have averaged this year.
So can the Redskins, with the aforementioned full compliment
of offensive skill players, score the 28 points or so that will be necessary to
win this? They have scored 22 points in each of their last three games (for
what it’s worth, no team in NFL history has every done that) and, considering
that they have blown plenty of opportunities in each of those games one has to
think that they have the potential to score more. The Eagle defense is good but
nothing special. They do have 26 sacks, but only three in their last three
games. They’re 14th in the NFL in total defense, and this is another
case of statistics doing a pretty good job of telling the story.
So they can score enough, but will they? I don’t think so.
They haven’t come close to beating a quality team on the road so far this year.
Perhaps they can, but they are going to have to show me that they can get it done
before I say that they can.
Eagles 24, Redskins 17
Rich Tandler is the
author of The Redskins From A to Z, Volume 1: The Games. This unique book
has an account of every game the Redskins played from when they moved to
Washington for the 1937 season through 2001. For details and ordering
information go to http://www.RedskinsGames.com
